Jamie Carragher has urged Mikel Arteta to build his Arsenal team around the impressive youngsters at the club.
The Gunners have had a poor season and the current team is being led by the likes of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Kieran Tierney.
These players represent the most reliable at the club, yet they are also some of the youngest in the team.
Arsenal’s bid to blend youth and experience have seen them offer new deals to the likes of David Luiz and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
But it is the teenage stars who Arteta can truly trust and Carragher thinks the Spaniard should build his team around them.
The former Liverpool defender says Arteta’s challenge on the job has always been bringing back the mindset that helped the club to thrive with players like Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira.
He says to achieve that, he needs to trust the likes of Saka, Smith Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli.
He also urged the Spaniard to only keep more experienced players that he can trust.
“From day one, Arteta’s challenge at Arsenal has been to restore the mindset which once typified the club, getting it back to what it was when Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira ran the dressing room,” Carragher wrote in his Telegraph column.
“He can try to do that over the course of time by moulding the youngsters Kieran Tierney, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe to develop good habits.
“I would be surprised if highly-rated teenage defender William Saliba, who was signed amid much fanfare from Saint-Étienne, does not get his chance at the start of next season
“But to do it quicker Arteta also needs reliable senior professionals. It is too much of a burden for youngsters to carry a club of Arsenal’s stature through a season.”